


Big Smile For The Camera

by fictorium



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:41:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I love your sense of humour so how about a funny story? Sidney is sick of being used by Regina and is annoyed with Emma. He prints a story which involves a rather obvious photoshop of Regina and Emma kissing and falsely claims they are secretly having an affair. Regina and Emma deny it but nobody believes them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Smile For The Camera

Emma strides into the diner, in her usual hurry after lingering an extra ten minutes in bed. Her mornings would be a lot more pleasant if she could just magic herself out of bed looking like some kind of modern-day princess, but that crap only happens in Henry's book.

 

There's a line, so Emma joins it and surveys the pastry selection like the true connoisseuse that she is. She thinks, with no small amount of longing, of the little French bakery near her old apartment, where she picked up words like patisserie and ganache, all butchered in her flat American vowels. Not that it mattered how she asked, because Claude had kept her well supplied in flaky croissants and éclairs, almost every day for a year. Thank God bounty hunting involved a lot of running.

 

It's only when she decides on the kind of uninspiring apricot Danish that Emma notices the lull that's fallen over the room. There's still some whispered conversation going on, but it seems pretty pointed in a way that Emma doesn't like. It reminds her of school cafeterias and the bitchy little whispers about the orphan whose clothes never quite fit, that were never even close to being in style.

 

"Uh, Ruby?" Emma calls out, clearing her throat in the process. "Can I get my coffee to go? Police business."

 

"Sure thing, Em," Ruby calls back, turning away from where Marco is counting out his nickels and dimes to pay for a huge breakfast order. "Do you want me to just give you Regina's triple espresso now, too?"

 

The hush is back, and Emma realizes she could hear a pin drop in the diner right now. Not good. Not good at all.

 

“Why would you say that?” Emma asks, sounding more nervous than she wanted to. Things have been almost peaceful around Regina lately, now that she’s done framing Mary Margaret for murder, anyway. Has Regina suddenly added ‘coffee delivery’ to the job description of Sheriff? It wouldn’t be unheard of, like last week when she tried to claim that getting the Mayor’s car detailed was the responsibility of the Police Department. Emma had almost fallen for that one.

 

“Oh, so you’re not doing the whole morning after thing?” Ruby says, with a knowing wink. “Gotcha.”

 

“Ruby,” Emma says, pushing past Michael and Ashley to take Marco’s spot right in front of the register. “What the hell are you talking about?”

 

“It’s okay,” Ruby says soothingly, placing a warm hand on top of Emma’s clenched fist. “We all know. And I have to say? Nobody is judging. This might be a small town, but we’re not homophobes.”

 

“Here,” Michael says helpfully. “You can keep my copy. The guys at the body shop always have another.”

 

Emma stares down at the folded front page of the Storybrooke Mirror. Though the color is a little faded, Emma recognizes the two people in the photo right away, not least because she’s one of them.

 

“Is this...” she starts to say, but words fail her. Ruby puts a to-go cup down next to the paper, and Emma clutches at it like it’s some kind of life preserver. The first sip of still-too-hot coffee is like the gunning of the engine that powers her brain.

 

Emma Swan is completely, utterly pissed. 

 

“Sidney,” she mutters to herself, crumpling the paper in her hand. “I’m gonna kill that bastard.”

 

***

 

She runs the whole way to the newspaper office, because anything as time-consuming as finding her keys and getting the Bug to actually start is not an option. Emma’s so intent on her target that she doesn’t see Regina barrelling round the opposite corner, and they collide at the front steps of the office in a shocking impact of clothing, limbs and spilled coffee.

 

“Idiot!” Regina spits, looking about a hundred times as angry as usual. Emma swallows hard, because it’s already apparent that this photograph is worse than anything Emma might have done with a chainsaw. Regina looks ready to start practicing human sacrifice, and Emma has no intention of volunteering.

 

“You’re here about--” Emma begins, but Regina cuts her off in an instant.

 

“Of course I’m here about that,” Regina barks. “I’m going to go in there and hang Sidney by his toes until he confesses who put him up to this.”

 

“It wasn’t you?” Emma demands, a flicker of lingering doubt still burning in the pit of her stomach. “I mean, this wouldn’t be the first time you tried to embarrass me in print, Madam Mayor.”

 

“Embarrass you?” Regina’s voice is so high-pitched it’s a wonder anyone but dogs can hear her. “I’m the one who’s mortified. I’ll run you and Sidney out of town for this.”

 

“It’s clearly Photoshopped,” Emma says. “And if he has pictures of me in the first place, it’s only because you had him spying on me.”

 

“That has nothing to do with anything,” Regina huffs, folding her arms over her chest. Emma notes with a tiny smirk that the drama has disrupted Regina’s morning routine at least, because her nail polish is chipped and one of the cuffs on her blouse is undone beneath the spotless black blazer.

 

“If we storm in there like lunatics, he’s just gonna run,” Emma says carefully, praying that calling Regina a lunatic won’t result in Emma wearing the rest of her coffee. She’s safe, for now. “So why don’t you go in there and ask for him?”

 

“Where will you be?” Regina demands. 

 

“Waiting by his car for when he bolts,” Emma explains.

 

“He won’t run from me,” Regina says sniffily, pushing past Emma to enter the newspaper offices. Emma sighs, and makes her way round to the small parking lot.

 

***

 

Regina has the decency to look sheepish when she strides out into the parking lot five minutes later. 

 

Emma has Sidney pinned against the side of his car, cuffs in place although she hasn’t quite decided what to charge him with yet. Crimes against image editing should probably be a thing, because Emma’s seen better photo manipulation by kindergarteners. 

 

“Sidney,” Regina says, and Emma’s sort of stunned at how breathy her voice is. It’s almost... seductive. “I’m very disappointed in you.”

 

Emma shakes her head to clear the quite unexpected haze of lust that’s swept over her. A crappy photoshop job of her making out with Regina is one thing, but actually staring at Regina’s pouty lips and wondering what it would be like to kiss them? Emma would lock herself up first.

 

“Come on,” Emma huffs, dragging Sidney by the arm towards the street. “You’re gonna spend some time in the cells, Woodward.”

 

“I actually prefer Carl Bernstein--” Sidney starts to say, but Emma’s glare shuts him down. 

 

***

 

“I don’t understand,” Regina is saying as they all sit around the table where not so very long ago Emma presented Mary Margaret with a soil-stained jewelry box. Regina sounds kind of sweet, which is finally enough to have Emma’s hackles raised; nothing good ever comes of Regina being nice. “Why would you want to hurt me, Sidney? Didn’t I just give you your job back?”

 

“It wasn’t yours to take in the first place,” Sidney growls, thumping his fist down on the table. Any hope that he would weepingly confess is evaporating by the second. “Don’t act like you did me any favors, Madam Mayor.”

 

“Sidney!” Regina warns, when he leans across the table and gets just a little too close. Emma sees it then, this shadow of something so very dark that flits across Regina’s face. Sidney recoils from it, but Emma finds herself shifting in her seat, almost leaning towards Regina. If that was evil, then it was pretty freaking hot.

 

“Enough,” Emma says, seeing her chance to intervene. She has got to hire a real Deputy and stop letting Regina take over her interrogations. “Sidney, you’ll print a retraction in tomorrow’s paper, agreed?”

 

“Fine,” he says, ignoring Regina and addressing only Emma. “But I don’t think anyone is going to pay any attention.”

 

“I’m sure,” Regina chimes in again. “That nobody in this town thinks that Sheriff Swan and I are in any way involved. Regardless of your adventures in manipulation.”

 

“Sidney, you’re free to go,” Emma says in hurry. “Um, Regina?” She adds, as soon as Sidney has walked out the door. “About the other people in town...”

 

***

 

Regina doesn’t take it quite as badly as Emma expects. In the end, only one of the huge glass windows ends up shattered, and nobody’s actually bleeding by the time Regina calms down. 

 

***

 

The plan, when Regina finally stops insulting Emma, isn’t the strongest. But since Regina’s opening gambit had been a town hall meeting where she announces to everyone that the picture is a big old fake, Emma thinks this compromise is better than nothing.

 

Regina is currently pulling Henry out of school, which will probably go as well as every other time she’s done it. Emma wishes she could start by telling Mary Margaret the truth, but some part of her feels too ashamed to be around the mild-mannered schoolteacher. Tagging along with Regina, of course, was not an option anyway.

 

So Emma grits her teeth, and walks back to the diner. It’s much quieter now, because occasionally the citizens of Storybrooke actually go to work and do their jobs. Ruby lights up in another huge grin as soon as Emma walks in.

 

“Wow, another coffee break before lunch?” Ruby teases. “Someone must have had a hard night.”

 

“Ruby, I swear to God...” Emma groans, and Ruby takes the hint right away.

 

“You look like you need a shoulder to cry on, Sheriff,” Ruby says, busying herself with whipping up a sinful hot chocolate. She’s going heavy on the whipped cream and cinnamon, so Emma must look especially desperate. “Why don’t you come in back with me while I take my break, hmm?”

 

Emma’s so grateful for the gesture of friendship (and the million-calorie hot chocolate) that she doesn’t stop to think what it might look like to the other diner patrons. She scurries through the side door after Ruby, ready to start spreading the truth and get the Regina rumors quashed once and for all.

 

***

 

Emma’s so lost in the five different forms needed to report a single burglary that she doesn’t notice anyone approaching until the door to her office slams open so hard that it almost goes right through the wall. The jump and squeal that provokes are not exactly Emma’s proudest moments, although she does manage to avoid soaking herself with the half-empty glass of water that she knocks over mid-jump.

 

“Let me get this straight,” Regina says, and her voice is somewhere near a growl. It would be sexy if it weren’t also completely terrifying. “Now, not only are we having a secret affair, but you value our fake relationship so little that you’re cheating on me? In front of the whole town?”

 

“Woah!” Emma says, holding her hands up in something like surrender. “I am not dating anyone, okay?”

 

“Then why did I get an anonymous call at the office about your lunchtime tryst with Ruby, hmm?”

 

“Tryst? Ruby?” Emma splutters. “I was following your plan: to spread the truth. I’m not sure she believes me, for what it’s worth.”

 

“Apparently not. And you certainly gave a diner full of idiots the wrong impression, to boot,” Regina says.

 

“All I did was go in back with Ruby on her break,” Emma admits, before thinking it through.

 

“ _Are_ you having a... thing with Ruby?” Regina asks, moving in close to Emma’s desk. Suddenly the big piece of wood and piles of paperwork don’t seem like much protection at all. 

 

“Why do you care?” Emma fires back, sounding a hell of a lot more confident than she actually feels. “Getting jealous there, _lover_?” It’s a risk, but Emma trills the last ‘r’, making a suggestive little joke out of it. The last thing she expects is for Regina to actually blush.

 

“Miss Swan, this is not appropriate in any way--” Regina is quick to recover, winding up into a rant, but Emma is too amused to let that happen.

 

“Is that why you’re storming around town? I mean, I don’t really care if people gossip about me,” Emma lies, because while she can act like she doesn’t care, the whispers and nasty looks always sting. “But you want to crush even the suggestion of a rumor. Did it hit a little too close to home?”

 

“That is ridiculous,” Regina spits, but her eyes are wide and she’s clenching and unclenching her fists in a way that Emma has seen on countless bounty targets: the panic reflex. Regina’s body is choosing between fight or flight, and right now she wants to turn on those dominatrix heels and get the hell out of there. Well, Emma’s not nice enough to let her off that easily.

 

It only takes a few purposeful strides to put herself between Regina and the door, and Emma knows she makes an intimidating figure when she squares her shoulders and rests a hand casually on the gun at her hip. 

 

“I’m gonna ask you more more time, Madam Mayor, and I’ll even ask you nicely: did you, or did you not, put Sidney up to this?”

 

“No!” Regina snaps. “No, no, no. I specifically told him not to when he started suggesting things like this.”

 

“Ah, so you did talk about publicly humiliating me,” Emma says. “I mean, come on. If my sordid love life is going to be all over the papers, don’t you think I could do better than you, Regina?”

 

Emma intends it as a cheap shot, one designed to get Regina angry and careless in what she confesses. What Emma isn’t expecting is for the remaining color to drain from Regina’s face, leaving her looking like Emma just slapped her. 

 

“Right,” Regina says stiffly. “Well, I have a town to run, Sheriff. As for these rumors, we’ll just laugh them off, agreed?”

 

“Regina, wait--”

 

“That’s Mayor Mills, to you,” Regina finishes, gathering up her discarded purse and storming out of the office at a speed that suggests the building is on fire. Emma watches her go, before kicking out at the door and cursing her own stupidity.

 

“Damn!” She yelps, as her toes make contact with the very solid door. Emma’s not sure exactly why she’s so upset, but even starting to think about it makes her very, very nervous.

 

***

 

In the end, Emma knows that she’ll have to apologise to Regina if there’s to be any chance of ever hanging out with Henry again. That’s why, Emma tells herself, she really puts some time and effort into the apology.

 

The photo turns out to be a godsend. 

 

When Emma rocks up to the florist trying to pick between daisies and carnations, Mo forces a giant bunch of roses on her and only charges ten bucks. Angelica in the frou frou candy store claims that the Sheriff’s department has an account and the imported-whatever-selection makes the Hershey bar Emma ate after lunch look like cardboard in comparison. All she hears as she does her rounds is ‘well, since you and the Mayor are...’ and after the first occasion, Emma stops correcting them. This lie has made its way around the whole of Storybrooke while the truth was knocked on its ass, wondering what the hell just happened.

 

Emma calls Regina once she’s parked the Bug outside the mansion. Walking up the driveway, doing a bad juggling act, Emma is relieved that Regina actually answers.

 

“So,” Emma says after the stiff greetings are exchanged. “I’ve worked out what bugs me most about the whole fake photo thing.”

 

“Besides the fact that you can apparently do so much better than me?” Regina seizes on the opening in conversation right away, confirming that Emma really did strike a nerve.

 

“No, what really gets me is the bad staging. It makes both of us look like terrible kissers,” Emma continues, unwilling to let Regina derail her little plan. “And I, for one, am a great kisser.”

 

“That’s easy to say, Miss Swan,” Regina replies, sounding surprisingly warm. “But harder to prove.”

 

“Well,” Emma says, reaching out to knock on the front door.

 

“Damn, hold on,” Regina says. “There’s someone here.”

 

“Right,” Emma says, barely holding back a giggle. 

 

“What?” Regina says as she throws the door opening, her features rearranging themselves into surprise and then bored indifference in a matter of moments. “Oh,” she adds. “Well, that was a waste of a phone call.”

 

“As I was about to say,” Emma jumps in, before she can lose what little courage she’s mustered. This is why people get drunk before doing stupid things. “I can prove that I’m a good kisser, if only you’ll open the front door.”

 

“I opened the front door,” Regina says, hanging up her phone and shoving it in the pocket of her blazer.

 

“So that means you’ll let me prove it?” Emma says, shoving her own phone into her jeans’ pocket. “Because I wouldn’t want to start some nasty rumor...”

 

“Are those for me?” Regina says, finally acknowledging the gifts. Emma nods, but keeps her gaze fixed on Regina’s mouth. “Oh, if you must,” Regina sighs, but she’s the one who steps forward and grabs Emma by the jacket, pulling her into the kind of _holy-mother-of-God_ kiss that leaves Emma wondering if her knees or her sanity will give out first. 

 

“Um...” Emma manages to say when they break apart. She shoves the roses and candy box at Regina, who accepts them with a smug little smile.

 

“You’d better come in,” Regina says, pretending to consider her options. “Henry won’t be back from soccer until 8.30.”

 

“Huh,” Emma says, recovering as she follows Regina through the foyer. “Anyone would think I knew that before paying you a visit.”

 

“Did you?” Regina asks, turning around in genuine interest.

 

“Of course I did,” Emma says. “I’m not as dumb as I look.”

 

Very carefully, Regina puts Emma’s gifts on the nearest table, and this time when she grabs Emma, Regina pushes her hard against the wall. 

 

“If this is some kind of game... if you are dating Ruby... if this is anything other than what I think it is--”

 

“It is exactly,” Emma says, bobbing her head forward just enough to skim Regina’s lips with her own. “What,” she adds, with another fleeting kiss. “You think it is.”

 

“Oh,” Regina says, with just a flicker of tongue over her bottom lip. Emma groans at the sight. “Good.”

 

“Now,” Emma says, her impatience growing as Regina’s hands rest on the planes of her chest. “What do you say we stop talking for a while, huh?”

 

***

 

Emma is limping a little when she makes it back out to the Bug at 8.25, but she manages to be turning the corner just as Henry comes into view, oblivious as he runs along the sidewalk. She looks at him for a long moment as the car glides around the turn, and hopes like hell she hasn’t just screwed up the start of her promising relationship with him.

 

Every bone in her body is screaming for Emma to hurry home and run a long, hot bath, but she has one stop to make first. She squirms a little in her seat, thinking about the relentless attention of Regina’s fingers, of the way she’d buried her head between Emma’s thighs and not come up for air until Emma was screaming every curse would she could think of (and a few she hadn’t realised she knew). Emma, naturally, had given every bit as good as she got, right down to the way she’d left Regina gasping, on all fours, until she’d begged for Emma to please, please, _please_ bring her fingers back and finish the job.

 

In just two minutes, Emma completes a circuit of the block and parks up again, a little further down the street from Regina’s house, hiding the conspicuous yellow car behind a big, blue truck. Emma kills the ignition and slips out into the growing shadows, skirting the tall hedge that runs along the boundary of the Mayor’s property.

 

Emma makes it to her spying place just in time, because the front door opens and spills warm light out into the gray evening, illuminating Sidney Glass in his best reporter-about-town-wear. There’s a faint hope in Emma’s chest that Regina is exacting revenge after all, but that hope dies when Regina (in nothing more than a black silk robe) pulls Sidney into a laughing, grateful hug. He seems way more enthusiastic about it than Regina, and in fact she practically has to peel his hands off her when it’s done. 

 

Damn. 

 

It should make a difference, Emma thinks, but then at the back of her mind she always suspects Regina of something. Does it really matter how it happened, so long as it happened at all? Emma runs a finger over her still-tingling lips, tasting the faintest traces of Regina still, and decides in that moment that no, it doesn’t matter much at all. 

 

Without giving away her location, Emma creeps back to her car, gunning the engine and driving off in the opposite direction. That bath is calling out to her, and this time she isn’t going to ignore it. 

 

If Regina was serious, ten minutes ago, about doing this again, then Emma will have to deal with the knowledge she has now. Until then, however, she has some glorious action replays to keep her mind occupied, and Emma can’t help but smile at the thought.


End file.
